“Why a safehouse?” It’s a strange thing to call 221b, a strange thing to try and turn it into. It’s never been a particularly safe place. Interesting, yes. Safe? No.
He curls his lips at me. He’s annoyed. At me? No. He’s annoyed that he has to be in a safehouse. That they had to build him one. That he has to stay in it.
His lips are exactly as I remembered them, but different somehow: they turn up a little as he speaks sometimes, a quiet little half-smile most people wouldn’t notice. I remember that. But my memories were washed out, it seems. I missed all the key details, the things that make him real. I didn’t entirely remember these gradations of colour, or the precision in the shapes that make him. I remember the creases there, the way they deepen while he’s thinking, I thought about them all this time, but not quite like this. I remembered the sharp edges of his upper lip, sharp as if they were carved in stone with a chisel. His angles are more extreme than other people’s, harder and more pronounced, as if his skin takes on the shape of his personality. But I couldn’t picture his lips like this. As they actually are. Not quite.
Amazing.
“Sebastian Moran.”
What? Who? I’m not sure how that’s an answer to my question. But I’m in no fit state to argue.
He sits across from me; he’s watching me. Monitoring me, more likely. Here we are, in the sitting room like we used to be, me in my chair, him in his. I remember sitting here without him, and the agony of that empty chair across from me. The senselessness of it. No. Not now. Oh my god.
“He’s the last,” Sherlock says. “He should know by now, he at least suspects.” That you’re alive? I didn’t. I didn’t suspect.
He steeples his fingers in front of his mouth: I remember that too. His perfect oval fingernails, perfectly clean, manicured. I remembered them remarkably well. I imagined his fingers so many times: holding open the paper, aiming a fork at a bit of tomato. I imagined them knitted in mine, resting against my hip in the night, sliding across my chest and onto my stomach, with his lips pressed against mine. Oh god. Now is not the time. Jesus.
“He’ll be looking for me now.” Sherlock: you haven’t noticed, have you? You’re going to. Christ. I can’t hide this from you. Don’t think about it. He’s deep in thought, his eyes are hovering on some point over my head. I’m just in shock, I need to drink more tea.
Would I have imagined those things if I’d known he was alive? I don’t know. I don’t. Maybe. Maybe not. Christ.
He can’t read minds, no matter how much he’d like to.
“I’d rather go find him myself than sit here waiting for him to work it out.” He jumps out of his chair, and paces toward the window. He’s like a caged animal. Well, I suppose he is: he’s been forbidden to leave the flat. I knew Mycroft had some power over Sherlock, but I never imagined he’d have the power to forbid anything.
“As if I can’t be trusted with my own safety.” He peers through the curtain at the street below.
Well, you never could be trusted to take care of yourself, could you. You take every available risk, every one, to get what you want. And what do you want? Excitement, to solve a case, to make a point. I love that about you. I love that.
He looks over at me, raises an eyebrow. What?
Oh: so this is my fault, is it? This cage? My fault? The classifieds. I told Mycroft something he didn’t already know, something about your current risk-taking behaviour. Getting me involved: you weren’t supposed to do that, were you. So those codes were meant to be our secret, between you and me. Is that it? In the newspapers. The newspapers, Sherlock, that is not a private space. It was against the rules, wasn’t it, sending me into the breach like that. Well, it’s not my fault I got frustrated, it wasn’t enough to go on. You were driving me mad. Just like you do: I should have known. What did you expect me to do, who did you think I would suspect? Who was I supposed to call instead? You were dead. Your precious name was off the table. Christ.
You really can’t be trusted, Sherlock. If this whole operation rests on this Moran fellow not suspecting you’re alive, and my belief in your being dead was the evidence of that, why were you sending me to all those arrests, anyway? Incredible. You can’t resist showing off. Of course you can’t: you’re still you. You haven’t changed. You thought you were leaving me all the clues, you were leading me toward you all this time, weren’t you. Wouldn’t that look suspicious? I can’t believe I’m siding with Mycroft on this one. But he has a point. You need a safehouse. You need a keeper. I guess that’s me. That’s me, now.
“He takes the fun out of everything.”
I can’t help it: that makes me laugh. It makes me laugh so much I spill some tea on my lap. Three years of trying to find something new to come close to occupying me the way you did and here I am, being your caretaker all over again. With shaking hands and a pounding headache. And a crush. Let’s not forget about that: a crush on my flatmate.
Well, fuck.
He’s laughing too, a little. Laughing at me, maybe. Or at all of this: the two of us, back in 221b, waiting for someone to come and kill us both. It’s like poetry. It’s the answer to dreams I didn’t dare have. He’s looking at me again, he’s examining me. I know that look on his face. He sees something he didn’t expect to, and he’s going to deduce something about it. About me. I’m helpless against this: what is it, you can tell by my left index finger that I can’t stop thinking about your mouth? Something like that, I’m sure. He’ll know.
No. No, not yet. Christ. Put the cup down, look away. There’s nothing to see here, Sherlock. Nothing. Just your very shocked former flatmate, still processing the reality of your face. Still processing. Still in shock. That’s all. If I’m staring at you, that’s all it is. You were dead: I mourned you. It’s been three years. I missed you. I missed you so much. I dreamed about you, of course I did. It makes sense.
You must have known, before. Before you did this, before you jumped. We sat here, on the sofa, you and I, watching telly. You sat too close to me. You got into my bed in only a sheet. You must have known. You must have seen it in me even then, before I did.
I’m not ready for this conversation. No. Not now. I just– I can’t.
But I can stand up, I can move around. I have nervous energy suddenly. Don’t look too close, Sherlock, not yet. I can’t feel my knees anymore, but that’s okay. What am I doing here? Why am I here? I left my bags downstairs. I should go get them. I should bring them in here, I should sort through them. I packed in a hurry. We should set things up. There’s a wireless router, we still have a modem. Is that allowed? Are we allowed the internet? I should plug it in and get it working, I can do that. There’s a laptop sitting on the table; that must be yours. How did I miss it? I should tidy up. I could wash the dishes, but there’s only two cups of tea. That’s all, that won’t take long enough. There’s a stack of bedding sitting on the coffee table; that must be from Mrs Hudson. I should make the beds.
“John,” he says. No. Not yet, Sherlock. My left arm tingles and I’m afraid it’s going to develop a tremor again. And I would blame you, you know. I would blame you. “I’m sorry about Mary,” he says.
Oh. That.
Well.
I don’t know what to say about that. I’d nearly forgotten; that feels like weeks ago. You’ve distracted me. It was for the best. I don’t know.
“Did you finally end it, or did she?”
He knows about Mary; he knows it’s over. He knows far too much about everything, but he can’t know which of us pulled the plug, somehow. I suppose it could have gone either way. She could have started that conversation. It just so happens that I did. It feels like it was months ago. Years ago. It’s faded away to grey now, and all there is now is you. There are more colours in your lips than I remembered: more variation. “It was me.”
He nods, as if that confirms something. How does he know about Mary? He’s been watching me. All this time. From my peripheral vision. Damn. There’s a beeping sound, and he pulls a phone out of his pocket. A text. He reads it. He twists his mouth at it, then sets it down on the desk. He sighs. He paces. He’s nervous. Stuck. Caged.
“This waiting,” he says, and flops onto the sofa. “It’s going to kill me.”
I can’t help but laugh. I can’t help it. I want to throw something at him for that, but I can’t, I can’t stop laughing. I need to sit down, I need to sit, I’m going to fall over. The edge of the sofa, by his feet, I can sit there. I’m practically kneeling, and I can’t stop laughing. He’s laughing too, his hands on his stomach like that will keep it all in. I can feel him, the vibration of laughter through the sofa. His and mine. Mrs Hudson must think we’ve gone mad.
“You bastard,” I say, finally. “Jesus Christ, Sherlock. You fucking bastard.”
He grins at me.
I shake my head. He’s lying there, looking over at me. It would be so easy; I’ve imagined this. I could lean over him, one hand at his waist, the other by his head. I could lean over him, laughing, still in shock, half-hysterical, and kiss him. Because I’ve missed him. Because he’s been gone so long. Because he’s mine to take care of, because he’s mine. And I want to.
Oh my god.
There’s another beeping sound; another phone, a different sound. How many phones has he got? He pulls it out of another pocket and stares at it. He rolls his eyes.
“Mycroft,” he says. He sits up. “Shall I send him your love?”
“I have nothing to say to him,” I tell him. I’m nervous. Christ. I feel like I’m thirteen, what’s wrong with me? Shock: right. I’m not myself. There’s a pile of bedding on the table. I’ll make the beds. That’s what I should do.
Wait: “No. Tell him he’s a bastard, too.” They both kept me in the dark. Both of them. Pick up the bedding: enough for two beds. Two bedrooms, two beds. Of course.
He’s not looking at me anymore, he’s looking at the phone, his elbows on his knees. He’s working. Like he always did. I should set up the router. No: he can manage that. I’ll make the beds. Beds are easy: mattresses into sheets, pull out the bedclothes, make them even on either side. I could do that in my sleep. I could do that even though I can barely feel my extremities. And it will give me a bit of distance: I need that. I need to breathe, I need to think. Bedding: two sets. Mrs Hudson knew this was going to happen: she washed these sheets today. They’re still a bit warm from the dryer. Two sets of bedding. She knew when she called me. Maybe before that, maybe she knew after the tenants took the boiler out.
The tenants didn’t take the boiler out, did they. Was that Sherlock too? Or Mycroft? Or was it this Moran character, the last of the criminals? I’ll ask, at some point. I’ll ask. Mrs Hudson knew all along, didn’t she.
Of course she did. I can’t tell if I’m angry or relieved. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or shout. Or scream. Or all of the above. I just don’t know.
“I’m going to make the beds,” I tell him. He doesn’t look up. I guess that’s obvious, too obvious for commentary: I’m holding the bedding. His back is curved, a brief moment of poor posture. His hair is too long, it’s corkscrewing out from the back where he mussed it against the sofa. I can see him clench his jaw, I can see tension in his shoulders. He starts texting angrily, and I’m staring at him again.
“Right.” Everything is upside down.
I’ll make the beds. I can do that.